Article — Vermeersch, On Chastity
Article I. Which Complete Use of Marriage is Morally Good
Before you read this chapter
This chapter sets out plainly what the moral law permits and forbids to husband and wife. The authors wrote these pages for two readers only: for priests and those preparing for the confessional; and for those engaged to be married, or married, who have true need to understand the nature and obligations of marital relations. It is not reading for anyone else, and it is not reading for curiosity — the authors say so themselves, gravely and with one voice.
St. Alphonsus begged even his own students not to read this matter except for its one lawful end, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they read, lest in learning to help other souls they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition). If you have no true need of these pages, the safe and virtuous course is to go back: what is written here is for a state of life, not for wondering about.
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The notion of perfect intercourse.
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223. - That is perfect intercourse by which both spouses, from the carnal union of both, with the seed of the husband within the wife's vagina, are said to become one flesh.
Intercourse between spouses is morally good from its object.
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This act, between spouses, is morally good from its object. It therefore remains to inquire what it requires from the end and what, besides, from the circumstances.
Within this article
- § 1. On the End of Morally Good Intercoursenn. 224–226